Nicolaas Bloembergen Born: 11-Mar-1920 Birthplace: Dordrecht, Netherlands Died: 5-Sep-2017 Location of death: Tucson, AZ Cause of death: Heart Attack
Gender: Male Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Physicist Party Affiliation: Democratic Nationality: United States Executive summary: Nonlinear optics American physicist Nicolaas Bloembergen made modifications to Charles H. Townes's maser in the mid-1950s, developing the three-level maser, which pumps electrons to the highest level until the electrons emit microwave radiation and then, after the level fades, again stimulates the electrons to emit energy at a lower frequency. Later, working with Arthur L. Schawlow, he invented the new technique of laser spectroscopy, which allows investigations of matter that had been undetectable without such technology. His work has had practical applications ranging from surgical operations to fiber optics. He studied under E. M. Purcell, and worked on the team that developed the principles of nuclear magnetic resonance. With Schawlow and Kai M. Siegbahn, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1981.
As a young man, he escaped from the Nazi regime, an ordeal he described in his self-penned Nobel biographical essay:
The remaining two dark years of the war I spent hiding indoors from the Nazis, eating tulip bulbs to fill the stomach and reading Kramers' book Quantum Theorie des Elektrons und der Strahlung by the light of a storm lamp.
Father: Auke Bloembergen (chemical engineer) Mother: Sophia Maria Quint (French teacher) Wife: Huberta Deliana Brink (m. 1950, two daughters, one son) Daughter: Antonia Son: Brink Daughter: Juliana
High School: Municiple Gymnasium, Utrecht, Holland (1937) University: BS, University of Utrecht (1941) University: MA, University of Utrecht (1943) Scholar: Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Harvard University (1943-45) University: PhD Physics, University of Leiden (1948) Fellow: Harvard University (1949-51) Teacher: Physics, Harvard University (1951-57) Professor: Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics, Harvard University (1957-80) Professor: Rumford Professor of Physics, Harvard University (1974-80) Professor: Gerhard Gade University Professor, Harvard University (1980-) Professor: Optical Sciences, University of Arizona (2001-)
Guggenheim Fellowship 1957 APS Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize 1958
IEEE Morris Liebmann Memorial Award 1959
Franklin Institute Stuart Ballantine Medal 1961
National Medal of Science 1974 Lorentz Medal 1978 OSA Frederic Ives Medal 1979
Nobel Prize for Physics 1981 (with Arthur L. Schawlow and Kai M. Siegbahn) Commander of the Order of Orange-Nassau 1983
IEEE Medal of Honor 1983 EGU Alexander von Humboldt Medal 1989
American Academy of Arts and Sciences 1956 American Physical Society President, 1991 Federation of American Scientists Board of Sponsors French Academy of Sciences Foreign Member, 1980 Harvard Society of Fellows Junior Fellow, 1949-51 Indian Academy of Sciences Foreign Fellow, 1978 IEEE National Academy of Engineering 1984 National Academy of Sciences 1959 Optical Society of America Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences 1956
Dutch Ancestry
Naturalized US Citizen 1958
Official Website: http://www.optics.arizona.edu/faculty/resumes/bloembergen.htm
Author of books:
Nuclear Magnetic Relaxations (1948, physics) Nonlinear Optics (1965, physics) Encounters in Nonlinear Optics (1996, selected papers)
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